Did you? Do you?

Do you?

Do you bristle at the thought of more government?  Is one of your philosophies a worry that Big Brother, Uncle Sam and all his little Uncle Samettes are slowly and surely invading your space, zapping your will, stealing your thunder and absconding with your rights and personal liberties? That they are generally meddling too much in your life?

Did you vote yes to Amendment one on Tuesday May 8, 2012 in North Carolina? If you answered affirmatively to the above questions, then my query for you is; how do you reconcile your actions?

By voting yes to Amendment one you’ve invited keen over site into an institution that you hold dear. You’ve diminished that institution that you value as one between you, a spouse and God, because you’ve invited a fourth party into the relationship, that being the State of North Carolina. Sure they’ve been there for a long time but now they, the state, are much more invested in what your relationship looks like, how it’s formed and what God’s role is.  God, by your action has now been moved out of the center, where God should be, to the sidelines and the new resident at the center of your marriage is the State.

To me, why that smacks of, dare I say it? Socialism or worst, Communism!  In those states God has no place in the relationship; God is supplanted by Big Brother at the center of all.   That yes vote for Amendment one in North Carolina had unforeseen consequences that the special interest groups and the authors of the bill and the yes voters never contemplated or envisioned. Those groups by their short sited actions in an attempt to strengthen what they hold dear and protect, their marriage, have indeed diminished it.

So, that’s the warning in knee jerk, reactionary legislation; it has dire and unexpected outcomes and by denying others a right, one often abridges one’s own rights and conditions.  Sadly messes like this one are terribly difficult to clean up.

I Feel...

I feel oppressed

For the first time in my life, I truly feel oppressed.  I've felt discrimination, I've felt hate, I've been targeted; had my home egged, shot at and paint balled. I had someone threaten to kill me and my partner John; had them threaten to burn our home down on Easter Sunday, I've had to clean up the glass from broken windows.  As disturbing as all of those acts were while we lived on Mineral Springs Rd. here in Durham NC; they don't compare to how this week's vote on Amendment 1 in North Carolina has made me feel. 

For the first time in my live I feel pressured by institutional oppression.  Interestingly enough, I'm single and unattached with no hint of romantic prospects and not even a glimmer on the horizon.  So marriage or civil union for me isn't possible right now. Even after several assaults and bumps and bruises in the past; here in North Carolina and once in Louisiana, I don't recall ever feeling as demoralized and damaged as I feel this week.  I am perplexed and disturbed by the fact that, in facing my neighbors, co-workers, family members and friends; that six in ten of them voted to make me a second class citizen with far fewer rights than they enjoy.  

I suppose that when there were physical confrontations at the Our House diner on Glenwood Ave. in Raleigh or when a sheriff's deputy with Durham County cornered my date and me at Waffle House on Hillsborough Rd. in Durham because in his words, "Something just didn't look right." I coped rather well because the bigotry was overt.  The sheriff's deputy didn't like two buff, late thirties, men in somewhat flamboyant bar wear visiting Waffle House at three am on a Sunday morning. What to him didn't look right was we were who we are and we weren't drunk, so he had NOTHING on us. But he held us for twenty minutes of incessant questioning until one of his comrades said, "Let them go."

This vote on Amendment one was covert.  You see so many with whom I work, have stayed silent and by their silence have spoken volumes.  They've said hello and asked how I am, but they haven't mentioned Tuesday.  Those around me who have voiced compassion and expressed dismay; well that tells me how they voted and where they came down  on the issue.

The masses who turned out to vote for this Amendment were mostly coached into their vote by their preachers and lay people in their churches, by the idiot brigade on AM talk radio and by deep seeded bigotry; away from the public eye and in a secret society. A society where there is no debate or rebuttal but rather edict and hierarchy. A secret society in which this is the way that it has always been and yes, shall remain. Those masses who voted yes, at heart view me as less than equal; as if something is wrong with me; as if I made some sort of decision to gladly live at the point of their bigotry, intolerance, ignorance and sometimes violence.

Yes, I feel oppressed, but let me give you oppressors fair warning here and now.  The gloves are off.  I'm NOT leaving, I'm here for a reason and I will remain here. I will fight too. Not with my fists but with my whit, my pen, my money and my brain. I will when I deem it necessary disrupt you in your secret places.  I will when essential call you out in print by your name. I will, when needed punish you financially by directing my money and my business referrals away from you. I will participate in the broader and greater struggles to free any and all peoples who might feel the yoke of oppression. 

Finally, I will work to my dying breath to educate my enemies that I did not make a choice to be what and who I am anymore than they made a choice to be what and who they are.  I did however and will continue to make a choice to live an open, honest and affirming life; the life that God has called me and all of his beloved to live.

Killing God in others

What is it?

What is it that would compel a Southern Baptist preacher from his pulpit to proclaim on the Fourth of July, that the president of the United States is one of the antichrist? In reflection several questions come to my mind;

1. Where is the Christ driven love, grace and compassion in that statement?
2. What possible goal is contemplated with such a statement?
3. What possible good can come of such a statement?

First Timothy 4:4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected when it is received with thanksgiving.

Man, all men and women are made in God’s image and in each person resides God. When we demean, diminish men and women we are demeaning and diminishing the God within them. To paint another as him whose name I will not speak or as antichrist then we are killing God within that person and there is no Christ appointed love, grace or compassion in that. We can disagree with points of view, with behavior but the human is always human and therefore a divinely inspired creature.

The goal of such a statement is simple to advance a personal agenda, perhaps, to cover some sort of insecurity, to garner an amen from those assembled, perhaps none of the above, perhaps all of the above. There is no Biblical foundation for such a statement or belief. The blood of Christ washed all of that away.

What good can come of such statements; none. Any statement that kills God in another diminishes the glory and gift of Calvary. Statements as such make God’s gift to humanity less real to all because it blows open the door to kill God in all. Today the God found in the president tomorrow the God found in you or me. That isn’t to say that we cannot find individual actions of a human to be less than divine, indeed we can and our call in those instances is prayer and example.

What is the call to action? Prayer; all people are worthy of the cross. We may not like some of their actions, we may find that some of their actions are contrary to scripture and teaching; but they the person in which God resides in worthy of our love, grace and respect.

NC Marriage Amendment a Response

Hmmmm

What do you do when you must face 6 in 10 people in your home state that have voted for an amendment to the state constitution that based on archaic religious grounds makes you a second class citizen?

Yesterday the voters of North Carolina overwhelmingly approved a poorly worded and ill-conceived amendment to the state constitution banning all forms of union except that of one between a man and a woman. The religious in droves went to the poll upholding the mores of the Old Testament whilst all but ignoring the good news that Jesus Christ brought in the New Testament. That Good News fulfilled the Old and in the words of Christ, “Finished it.” More succinctly, “It is done.”

Yes indeed it is done, but too many “followers” haven’t gotten the message. That being do unto others as you would have them do unto you; love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbors as you love yourself. Clearly in North Carolina this didn’t happen. A majority here as in most places are mired in the rigid religiosity of the Jewish Bible and to that end they will abrogate and deny equal protection under the law to their neighbors, co-workers, friends and family members.

The will do to the least what was done to Christ and they will feel smug and justified in doing so and that is terribly sad and immoral. Ironically those who voted to amend will feel most moral and will often pat themselves on their collective backs in self-congratulation for taking the moral high ground.

They will forget that during Jim Crow those who instituted and upheld terrible, abusive laws often behaved the same way. They felt justified in harming those considered to be lesser and less worthy. So until the masses in North Carolina and the world can get to a place where they truly understand that Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender people do not make a decision to be what they are; then the collective we will have to find some way to cope and endure through these most difficult, painful and hurtful days.

There is immense anger and hurt today in North Carolina, although many of us aren’t much surprised, scratch the surface and look closely and one sees a society that is ignorant, bigoted and prejudice in a whole spectrum of beliefs. Our hate and intolerance abuses those on the margins, those different, those painted as wicked and the only way to combat that hate is steadfast resolve and the moral high ground.